LA Times edits column and apologizes after drawing the ire of LSU coach Kim Mulkey
By Thomas Schlachter, CNN
(CNN) — The Los Angeles Times have edited a previously published commentary piece written about the LSU women’s basketball team following criticisms of the article by the team’s head coach, who decried its tone as sexist and “awful.”
Speaking to the media after the Tigers’ 78-69 Sweet 16 win against UCLA on Saturday, head coach Kim Mulkey took the opportunity to raise awareness of the piece titled “UCLA-LSU is America’s sweethearts versus its basketball villains.”
Mulkey slammed the article’s characterization of her team and said she considered some of the language used to describe her team sexist.
The LA Times has since revised the column and added a note reading, “A previous version of this commentary did not meet Times editorial standards. It has been updated.”
On Monday it updated the note to say: “A previous version of this commentary did not meet Times editorial standards. It has been edited to remove language that was inappropriate and offensive. We apologize to the LSU basketball program and to our readers.”
Mulkey was livid on Saturday.
“You can criticize coaches all you want,” Mulkey said. “That’s our business. You can come at us and say, ‘You’re the worst coach in America. I hate you, I hate everything about you.’ We expect that. It comes with the territory.
“But the one thing I’m not going to let you do, I’m not going to let you attack young people, and there were some things in this commentary, guys, that you should be offended by as women. It was so sexist, and they don’t even know it.”
The opinion piece, written by UCLA beat writer Ben Bolch, pits the two college teams against each other from the first line as going “well beyond school allegiance.”
Bolch on Monday wrote on social media that he “failed miserably” with his choice of words and he wanted to sincerely apologize to the LSU and UCLA programs.
The piece referred to UCLA as “America’s sweethearts” and “milk and cookies.” Conversely, it referred to LSU as “dirty debutantes” and “Louisiana hot sauce.”
Bolch said he tried to be clever with alliteration but didn’t understand at the time how the connotations were deeply offensive.
“Our society has had to deal with so many layers of misogyny, racism and negativity that I can now see why the words I used were wrong,” he wrote.
Coach: Reporter’s column was sexist
“It was good versus evil in that game today. Evil? Called us ‘dirty debutantes?’” Mulkey said Saturday. “Take your phone out right now and google ‘dirty debutantes’ and tell me what it says. ‘Dirty debutantes?’ Are you kidding me?
“I’m not going to let you talk about 18- to 21-year-old kids in that tone. It was even sexist for this reporter to say UCLA was milk and cookies.”
One of the edits made to the LA Times article removed the mention of “dirty debutantes” as well as “milk and cookies.”
Mulkey said on Sunday that no one from the newspaper had contacted her, and she didn’t require an apology.
“I don’t need all that,” Mulkey said. “I just like to recognize when I feel something was done inappropriately to young people that I get to coach.”
UCLA head coach Cori Close, who shared the article on social media, has since issued an apology for her actions.
“I made a huge mistake in reposting without reading it first, and I am very sorry for that. I would never want to promote anything that tears down a group of people in our great game,” Close said Saturday in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“I do not condone racism, sexism or inflammatory comments aimed at individuals in our community. I apologize to Kim Mulkey and the entire LSU women’s basketball program.”
LSU next faces Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes on Monday in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Tournament in a rematch of last year’s title game.
The-CNN-Wire
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CNN’s Kevin Dotson contributed to this report.
